BARNACLES. 283 



this form, imitating the shape of the perch, then tho 

 pike, then the eel, by successive castings of its skin ; 

 then by another shift appeared as a bird, and then, 

 ghieing itself by its forehead to some stone, with its 

 feet in tiie air, threw off its covering once more, and 

 became a foal, which then gradually grew into a horse ; 

 — or if some veracious traveller, some Livingstone or 

 Barth, were to tell us that such processes were the in- 

 variable conditions under which some beast of burden 

 largely used in the centre of Africa passed, — should we 

 not think them very wonderful ? Yet they would not 

 be a whit more wonderful in this supposed case than in 

 the case of the Barnacle, in whose history they are 

 constan'Jxy exhibited in millions of individuals, and 

 have been for ages, — even in creatures so common that 

 we cannot take a walk beneath our sea-cliffs, without 

 treading on them by hu.ndreds ! 



